Connecticut’s Experiment with Bottled Water Deposits

By Gregory B. Hladky, Fairfield County Weekly

Starting last week, the soft gurgling of the estimated 561 million bottles of water sold every year in Connecticut was supposed to translate into the sweet clink of millions upon millions of nickels rolling into the threadbare pockets of state government.

Oct. 1 was the trigger date for expanding Connecticut’s long-standing system of requiring 5-cent deposits on beer and soda bottles and cans to include all those plastic water bottles.

Theoretically, the bottle-and-can deposit system ensures beverage containers are recycled, thus keeping them out of landfills and incinerators and off the streets, because consumers return them all to supermarkets or redemption centers to get all their deposits back. But lots of people don’t bother to redeem their containers and just throw them away.

A day after the new deposits hit, prices for a 24-pack of Poland Spring ranged from $3.99 at the Wethersfield Price Rite, to $5.49 at the Big Y in Ellington, to $6.99 at the Rocky Hill Stop & Shop. Sorkin said those pricing decisions are made by individual stores for reasons that could include a local sale, efforts to use up water that was delivered before wholesale prices rose, and possibly an effort to temporarily ease sticker shock for consumers.

The battle over who gets to keep the unclaimed deposits has been raging for years. Beverage distributors hired high-powered lobbyists like Pat Sullivan and Jay Malcynsky to convince lawmakers to let the industry keep the estimated $24 million in annual unclaimed deposits. They insisted they needed the money to cover beer and soda container handling and recycling costs, and their arguments and influence worked for a long time.

The turning point came late in 2008, when the recession’s brutal impact on state revenues started to become painfully clear. Lawmakers desperate for money to cover gaping holes in the budget saw those unclaimed deposits as “low-hanging fruit,” a revenue source that was a lot less painful than things like tax increases. So the General Assembly agreed to rip the unclaimed deposits away from distributors and stick them in the state’s treasury.

Environmentalists had warned for years that the mountains of plastic water bottles being thrown away were choking our landfills and polluting our air through incineration, littering our streets, and increasing our dependence on foreign oil. (The plastics used in most water bottles are petroleum-based.)

Susan Collins, executive director of the California-based Container Recycling Institute, says putting deposits on bottles and cans is “by far the way that has been most effective” in getting containers out of the waste stream and into recycling.

Read full article

Source: Fairfield Weekly

Drilling Near NYC Aquifers Approved with Rules

By Jad Mouawad, New York Times

After months of deliberations, state environmental regulators on Wednesday released long-awaited rules governing natural gas production in upstate New York, including provisions to oversee drilling operations near New York City’s water supplies.

The regulations, in a report requested last year by Gov. David A. Paterson, do not ban drilling near the watersheds, as many environmental advocates had urged. But the report sets strict rules on where wells can be drilled and requires companies to disclose the chemicals they use.

The prospect of gas drilling in upstate New York has stirred strong opposition from a coalition of environmental groups, city politicians and residents, who fear that expansive operations of this sort could contaminate the city’s drinking water. But it has gained firm supporters upstate who say the economic benefits of a new gas boom far outweigh any potential risks, especially given the weakness of the economy.

The gas industry has argued that vast gas reserves could be found in the Marcellus Shale basin, which extends for roughly 600 miles through Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.

The million-acre watershed supplies 15 million people, including 9 million New Yorkers. The Department of Environmental Conservation, which issued the preliminary guidelines, said that it found no reasonable basis for a drilling ban near the watershed, but that measures were necessary to allay concerns raised last year in public hearings.

Under the new rules, for example, drillers would be required to disclose the chemical fluids used for each well. Buffer zones would be created around reservoirs and aqueducts in the watershed. Wells drilled within a 1,000-foot corridor of underground tunnels that carry drinking water to New York City would require special approval, and in some cases, state inspectors would have to be present during some phases of operations.

“We need to have a zero-risk policy here, and it is not appropriate to allow drilling in such a unique and extraordinarily valuable resource,” said Kate Sinding, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The record in other states is so abysmal, and it doesn’t take much to do better than other states.”

The Manhattan Borough President, Scott M. Stringer, said the protections outlined did not go far enough and could expose the city to billions of dollars of expenses if it needed to invest in water filtration plants to counter contamination.

“A buffer zone is not a ban,” he said. “Quite frankly, a lot of these are half-baked measures that put the watershed at risk.”

Read full article

Source: New York Times

Water Problems from Drilling are Widespread in Pennsylvania

By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica

When methane began bubbling out of kitchen taps near a gas drilling site in Pennsylvania last winter, a state regulator described the problem as “an anomaly.” But at the time he made that statement to ProPublica, that same official was investigating a similar case affecting more than a dozen homes near gas wells halfway across the state.

In fact, methane related to the natural gas industry has contaminated water wells in at least seven Pennsylvania counties since 2004 and is common enough that the state hired a full-time inspector dedicated to the issue in 2006. In one case, methane was detected in water sampled over 15 square miles. In another, a methane leak led to an explosion that killed a couple and their 17-month-old grandson.

Methane is the largest component of natural gas. Since it evaporates out of drinking water, it is not considered toxic, but in the air it can lead to explosions. When methane is found in water supplies, it can also signal that deeply drilled gas wells are linked with drinking water systems.

In many cases the methane seepage comes from thousands of old abandoned gas wells that riddle Pennsylvania’s geology, state inspectors say. But other cases, including several this year and the 2004 disaster that left three people dead, were linked to problems with newly drilled, active natural gas wells.

The issue came to the forefront in January when methane was found in the water at 16 homes in the small town of Dimock, in northeastern Pennsylvania. State officials cited Cabot Oil & Gas for several violations they say allowed the gas to seep out of the well structures and into water supplies there. The Department of Environmental Protection asked the company to encase its lower well pipes completely in concrete — a process known in the industry as “cementing” — and assured the public that the contamination in Dimock was rare.

But according to a department spokeswoman, there have been at least 52 separate cases of what the state calls “methane migration” in the past five years. In two of the 2009 cases, regulators responded to complaints from more than 32 households and asked gas companies to supply clean water to at least a dozen homes with contaminated wells.

An undated report from the Pittsburgh Geological Society posted to the DEP’s Web site makes it clear that old wells and new drilling can lead to stray gas problems. “Although it rarely makes headlines,” the report reads, “damage or threats caused by gas migration is a common problem in Western Pennsylvania.”

The case Lobins was investigating at the same time as the Dimock case concerned a string of problems in Bradford, a rural town 200 miles west of Dimock along the state’s northern border. Shortly after a contractor for Schreiner Oil and Gas drilled several dozen wells in the area last spring, residents began complaining of murky and foul-smelling tap water. When the DEP investigated, it found methane in three water wells and metals in six others. It asked Schreiner to supply water to eight homes, and the company has begun installing water treatment systems at each house. While no new gas wells have been drilled in the Bradford area, according to the DEP, the existing ones continue to operate.

Michael Schreiner, Schreiner’s president, declined to comment for this article.

Lobins said the problems in Bradford — as in many of the contamination cases across the state — stem from a bad cementing job around the core of the well. In most gas drilling, the well pipe is encased in layers of concrete to keep it isolated from surrounding groundwater. The concrete also contains the enormous pressure exerted on the system during the process of hydraulic fracturing, which pumps water, sand and chemicals to the well bottom to break up rock.

Read full article

Source: AlterNet

Exxon Liable for Tainted Water in Queens

By Mireya Navarro, New York Times

Lawyers for New York City are trying to convince a jury in a federal trial that Exxon Mobil knew that an additive that it used in gasoline would contaminate groundwater.

The trial, which began on Tuesday before Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of United States District Court in Manhattan, is one of hundreds of cases that have been presented around the country against oil companies over the additive, M.T.B.E., a chemical compound that replaced lead in gasoline as an octane enhancer. Such enhancers boost engine performance and help prevent knocking.

New York City’s case against Exxon Mobil arose from the contamination of groundwater wells in Jamaica, Queens, that are designated as part of a backup system for drinking water in emergencies or droughts. In 2003, the city sued 23 oil companies over the contamination; it has reached settlements with 22, for a combined $15 million.

The Environmental Protection Agency says that even low levels of M.T.B.E. can make water undrinkable because of its taste and odor. While researchers have limited data on its health effects on humans, it is considered a carcinogen in high doses in animals.

Like ethanol, M.T.B.E., methyl tert-butyl ether, helps gasoline burn more cleanly and reduces tailpipe emissions. But it is also highly soluble in water, and fuel leaks from storage tanks and other sources have contaminated groundwater that is often a source of drinking water.

Twenty-five states, including New York, have restricted or banned M.T.B.E.

In opening statements on Tuesday, the lawyer for the city, Victor Sher, argued that Exxon, which started using M.B.T.E. in the 1980s, ignored evidence from its own scientists of a strong risk of groundwater contamination should the compound be added to gasoline. Mr. Sher argued that the company could have used ethanol, a more expensive octane enhancer that does not pose the same hazard.

Mr. Sher said 39 of 68 wells in Queens show M.T.B.E. contamination. But the focus of the trial is five contaminated wells that can yield about 10 million gallons a day to supplement water sources in cases of failure in the upstate reservoir system that provides New York City’s drinking water. City officials say a $250 million treatment facility would have to be built to make the water in the wells drinkable.

The company says that the wells are contaminated by other industry in the area. It adds that the city does not intend to build the treatment plant and has other projects under way to provide other backup sources of water.

The jury must rule on several elements of the case, including whether the city intends to build the treatment plant, the extent of M.T.B.E. contamination and the size of any punitive damages.

Read full article

Source: New York Times

Maine Community Rebuffs Nestlé Over Water Rights

By Leslie Samuelrich, Corporate Accountability International

After an extended grassroots campaign, Nestlé is finally removing 23 bottled water test wells from a wildlife management area in Shapleigh and Newfield, ME.

Shelly Gobielle and her neighbors first discovered the wells a year and a half ago, three years after Nestlé’s under-the-radar installation. Upon realizing that Shapleigh was likely one of the next site for Nestlé’s water extraction for its Poland Spring brand bottled water, residents approached town officials with their concerns about what bottling would do to the local ecosystem. Their words fell on deaf ears, as Nestlé had already lobbied for and secured the support of the Shapleigh town officials.

The only option was for residents to take matters into their own hands, forming the group Protect Our Water and Wildlife Resources (POWWR). Members hit the streets and went door to door educating the public and signing enough petitions to call a town meeting, held four months ago.

Residents in both Shapleigh and the neighboring town of Newfield passed ordinances that asserted the right of townspeople to control their own water and to prohibit commercial water extraction, a reality that can at last be assured.

This is a watershed moment, so to speak, in the effort to restore local control over water. Earlier this month another community group, the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, secured a major court victory against Nestlé after nine years of legal battles and Nestlé appeals. The settlement requires Nestlé to dramatically reduce pumping during summer months at a critical well site in Northern Michigan, and prohibits the corporation from increasing pumping levels in the future.

Source: AlterNet Mobile

Dredging Causes High Levels of PCBs in Air and Water

By Dennis Yusko, Times Union

FORT EDWARD — Federal officials have modified how they dredge the Upper Hudson River after high levels of PCBs were found in the air and water near Rogers Island in Washington County, they said Friday.

Air and water monitoring conducted along the river in Fort Edward last week showed higher-than-allowed levels of PCBs in the air and water contamination of up to 442 parts per trillion, just short of the federal standard of 500 parts per trillion that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said would shut the project down.

“At no point was anybody in danger,” EPA spokeswoman Kristen Skopeck said. “It just told us that we needed to make changes.”

But dredging critics jumped on the findings Friday, calling them a “crisis on the Hudson” and demanding the EPA immediately cease all dredging.

“After years of dismissing the idea that dredging will cause the resuspension of considerable amounts of PCBs, causing levels in water to spike and volatilization into the air, EPA officials now not only admit that resuspension is occurring, but also that noise and air quality levels have reached the threshold that EPA is supposed to use to shut the project down,” Tim Havens, Sr., said in a written statement.

Havens is president of Citizen Environmentalists Against Sludge Encapsulation (CEASE). Its members charged that the EPA was endangering the environment and welfare of local residents.

“EPA is exceeding the safety levels, and they are not even at full production,” Havens said.

The EPA, state Health Department and state Department of Environmental Conservation are monitoring the water and air around Fort Edward to ensure there are no health risks to people along the river, Skopeck said. PCB levels have dropped since General Electric Co. contractors reduced dredging in parts of the river that are most contaminated and changed the ways they handle soil scooped from the riverbed, she said.

The EPA in 2002 ordered GE to remove more than two million cubic yards of PCB-contaminated sediment from the bottom of the river between Fort Edward and Troy. GE plants in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls legally discharged PCBs into the river for 30 years until 1977. PCBs have been found to cause health problems in humans and animals.

Read full article

Source: timesunion.com

Lawsuit Filed to Block Law Encouraging Recycling of Water Bottles

By Nicholas Confessore, The New York Times

ALBANY – A coalition of bottled water companies filed suit on Tuesday to block an expanded bottle deposit law scheduled to take effect next month, arguing that the law, which imposes a deposit fee on bottled water sold in New York State, is unconstitutional.

The coalition includes Nestlé Waters North America; the International Bottled Water Association, an industry trade group; and Keeper Springs, a small bottler owned by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental advocate.

The new law requires distributors to collect a 5-cent deposit per bottle of water, which can in turn be redeemed by consumers, provisions designed to encourage New Yorkers to recycle the billions of water bottles now thrown away each year. But companies that bottle water must affix a new universal product code label to bottles sold in New York.

In a complaint filed in United States District Court in Manhattan, the water companies argued that the labeling requirement violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause because the language of the bill excludes any drink to which sugar has been added, like sports drinks. The complaint also charges that the requirement violates the Constitution’s interstate commerce protections because the wording of the law also seems to ban companies from selling the New York-labeled bottles in other states.

The lawsuit comes as Gov. David A. Paterson, who pushed to include the expanded recycling law as part of the budget passed in April, is considering proposals that would scrap or delay some of aspects of the program, like moving back the June 1 deadline for companies to begin using the UPC label.

In a court filing supporting the lawsuit, Mr. Kennedy, who is also chief prosecuting attorney of Riverkeeper, an environmental group, said the new law would undermine municipal recycling programs by depriving them of revenue from recycled plastic water bottles. Riverkeeper has staunchly supported expanding the deposit law to include bottled water. Mr. Kennedy said that he was speaking for himself and not for Riverkeeper.

In an interview, Mr. Kennedy said that that “the sugar lobby, and its indentured servants in the Legislature,” wrote the law to penalize bottlers of plain water.

“There is no rational basis for penalizing water,” Mr. Kennedy said. “It means that if I add a little sugar to my water, I don’t have to pay my redemption fee.”

Read full article

Source:  The New York Times

San Francisco wants to curb flow of water

SAN FRANCISCO – Toilets, faucets and shower heads in San Francisco businesses and residences may be required to use low-flow models as part of a large-scale water-conservation effort.

Although all new construction since 1994 has utilized low-flow toilets, there are existing bathroom fixtures in older buildings that use more water.

Supervisor Sophie Maxwell introduced legislation Tuesday that would require existing toilets, faucets and showers to use low-flow devices.

The proposed law “will again put San Francisco on the cutting edge of environmental policy and stewardship,” Maxwell said. An unknown number of buildings in The City do not use low-flow fixtures.

“Water saved from these programs will help to ensure a reliable water supply for customers both within and outside of San Francisco,” the legislation said.

The proposed bill is co-sponsored by Mayor Gavin Newsom.

“We’ve had three dry years and this is a sensible way to reduce our water consumption,” said Newsom spokesman Nathan Ballard.

The proposed law would require toilets, faucets and shower heads be low-flow in residential buildings when the building is sold or when it undergoes major improvements, converts into a condominium or undergoes a meter change.

For commercial buildings, all water fixtures must become low-flow by Jan. 1, 2017. Until then, water fixtures would have to become low-flow under certain circumstances, such as if the building undergoes a major renovation.

After a few sticking points were negotiated, the Building Owners and Managers Association supports the effort. Among contested issues were eliminating the requirement that commercial buildings must go low-flow at the point of sale.

Ken Cleaveland, director of government and public affairs for the association, said making all water fixtures low-flow in commercial buildings is “a pretty large expense,” and by providing building owners with seven years to do so is “more reasonable.”

Janan New, executive director of the San Francisco Apartments Association, said she is supportive of the water-conservation efforts, but also said The City should allow landlords to pass on a portion of the water cost to tenants, which she said is one of the best ways to ensure water conservation.

The proposal is the latest attempt by city officials to steer business owners and residents toward more environmentally friendly lifestyles. Newsom has introduced legislation, which is pending, that would make recycling mandatory.

Less is more

1.6
Gallons per flush low-flow toilets typically use

70
Gallons of water a family could typically save daily by using a low-flow toilet

3.5
Low end of the scale that an older toilet uses per flush, in gallons

7
High end of the scale that an older toilet uses per flush, in gallons

50
Percent that water usage in a home can be cut by using low-flow shower heads and faucets

Source: Department of the Environment

Article source: sfexaminer.com

South’s Dry Spell Travels North

CHARLESTON, West Virginia (AP) — The drought that has plagued the Deep South for more than a year is creeping northward, and officials in multiple states are restricting outdoor burning in the face of water shortages and forest fire risks from falling leaves and tinder-dry conditions.

Extreme drought conditions, the second-worst possible, have now spread into Kentucky, and severe conditions have returned to West Virginia and southwest Virginia, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

“The last three months have sucked every bit of moisture we’ve had,” said Ben Webster, a fire staff assistant for the West Virginia Division of Forestry.

In eastern Kentucky, retailers are sending bottled water to drought-stricken Magoffin County after its primary water source, the Licking River, fell to low levels and residents were told to conserve tap water.  The county’s school system is serving meals on disposable plates with plastic utensils. Lunch trays have been temporarily shelved to save on dishwashing.

Kentucky also suffered through a severe drought a year ago, but “this is probably the worst that I’ve had to deal with,” said Joe Hunley, Magoffin County’s schools superintendent.

Tens of thousands of gallons of bottled water have been distributed through a fire department and a water company alone.  “We’re bringing water in daily and distributing it to those people who are in need,” said county health director Berti Salyer. “Of course, that’s just about everyone in Magoffin County right now.”

Read full article

Source: CNN

Pennsylvania Town Requests Voluntary Water Conservation

DUBOIS – Mayor John “Herm” Suplizio is asking City of DuBois residents to voluntarily conserve water, he announced at yesterday’s city council meeting. Mayor Suplizio called on residents to eliminate unnecessary water usage in order to maintain the city’s water supply. Water levels are currently down at the city’s reservoir.”We’re not at a mandatory level yet, but we’re not far away from it,” said Mr. Suplizio. “If people don’t have to wash their cars, it would be nice of them not to. Just little things … if you don’t have to hose down your garage, things like that.”

Source: The Progress

Next Page »